Goldberger featured in TV news story about MiamiPolice.com.
Domain name attorney Ari Goldberger of ESQwire.com was featured in an NBC Miami story last week about MiamiPolice.com.
The Miami Police let the domain name expire a couple years ago and it was picked up by someone who now parks the domain with DomainSponsor. While I’m not sure why NBC Miami just did this story now (slow news week for the holidays?), it’s good to see Goldberger was interviewed for the story.
It turns out the Miami Police only owned the domain for a short time and never really used it, favoring their official web site Miami-Police.org. So they decided it wasn’t worth the $35 to renew the domain name.
The story reads:
Police spokesman Delrish Moss underscored that not having miamipolice.com does not affect police services at all, and that a small purchase here and a small purchase there adds up in times of severe budget crunches.
That’s the government at work.
The video is embedded below.
(As a side note, does anyone think the reporter in this story resembles ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom?)
Terry Garcia says
So is this cybersquatting? That is, buying and parking MiamiPolice.com .
Ron Jackson called the buyer a cybersquatter in his article the other day.
That really surprised me he’s say something like that.
I disagree with him, for the first time ever.
Andrew Allemann says
I hadn’t seen Ron’s article. I’d agree that this person is not cybersquatting.
Larry says
Video: “Can still be salvaged by paying a redemption fee of $150”.
The name almost certainly didn’t go into redemption. If a name goes into redemption the only person that can (legitimately) get the name back is the original owner (and in fact when a registrar takes a name out of redemption they attest to this fact.)
The name was originally registered in 1998 so it’s unclear the years that the domain was owned by the police department.
The traffic on the domain is negligible:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/miamipolice.com/
compared to the name they have:
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/miami-police.org/
Of course I agree they need the name obviously.
Andrew Allemann says
Miami Police owned it until end of 2009 when it expired. When the domain went into redemption (if it did) then it was the Miami Police who could have redeemed it.
Domainer Extraordinaire says
Ron Jackson is out of line calling the miamipolice.com owner a cybersquatter. I would have posted so on his website, if only I could.
Scott says
The far bigger concern is that Miami’s police chief, mayor and city manager passively surrendered the City’s virtual police badge, with which someone with bad intentions could credibly impersonate the Miami Police Department and/or its ranking hierarchy with the click of a mouse — from down the street or downtown Tehran. Endless possibilities, none good. Scary stuff.
DomainersChoice says
Many ‘city”police.com domains are owned by domainers and not by the local police. So are these all cybersquatters. What about people who own a city domain name, are they also cybersquatters? Articles like this is what is giving the domain industry a bad reputation.